Many of us have chosen one-word themes for the year. Holly Mueller our Spiritual Journey Thursday hostess has invited us Thursday pilgrims to share the thoughts and spiritual aspects of each others 2016 one-word choices each week until we’ve covered them all—a process that will take us into mid-February. Our word this week is BELIEVE,… Continue reading Believe
Pivot Night Under ancient curse Ushered through canal of pain Tiny, pink, squalling History pivots, the night Yahweh incarnates the Star © 2015 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved) *************** The daughter of my friend is in labor right now. And so my mind keeps drifting, this Christmas Eve day, to the ignominy of… Continue reading Pivot night
If: Trading Your If Only Regrets for God's What If Possibilities by Mark Batterson My rating: 4 of 5 stars In his newest book If, author Mark Batterson uses Romans 8 and the powerful little word “if” to challenge readers to live the Christian life with more obedience, faith, and abandonment. Section headings “If only,”… Continue reading If (review)
The Silver Locket by Sophia Bar-Lev My rating: 5 of 5 stars “ ‘I think that there’s something special happening here—a kind of “hashgacha pratis” like the Rabbi talks about. ... Oh, that’s Hebrew for “an intervention of divine providence” ’ ” – The Silver Locket, p. 23. The “something special” Rosalie Lapkin refers to… Continue reading The Silver Locket (review)
Happy Fall and welcome to September! The past few months of relative quietness here have been a period of thinking for me. I've asked myself, why do I do this--write, especially poetry? Why do I post it here? Do I want to keep doing this? This June before holidays I lived under a cloud of… Continue reading Denial
Let's Pretend We're Normal: Adventures in Rediscovering How to Be a Family by Tricia Lott Williford My rating: 5 of 5 stars “Mr Responsible died, suddenly and tragically. He was sick for only twelve hours. ... A thief named sepsis stole his breath and his heartbeat, and his spirit slipped right through Curly Girl’s fingers,… Continue reading Let’s Pretend We’re Normal (review)
My Life's Journey by Janet Kataaha Museveni My rating: 5 of 5 stars If I told you Janet Museveni was the first lady of an African nation, could you name which one? Until last week, me neither. But now that I have met this talented woman in the pages of her memoir, I know that… Continue reading My Life’s Journey (review)
Seventy-five years ago, in December of 1939, Britain was at war. It's easy to forget, knowing what we do today, that at the time no one knew how that war would end. That year in his Christmas message King George VI ended his 9-minute broadcast with the lines of an obscure poem by a little-known… Continue reading The Gate of the Year
Tina Janz feels torn between her parents’ wishes that she marry an upstanding (but boring) Mennonite boy and her desire for the man she loves—Frank Warkentin, the son of a Mennonite father and Gypsy mother. But the tug-of-war in Elma Schemenauer’s novel Consider the Sunflowers is more than between just Tina and her parents. For… Continue reading Consider the Sunflowers (review)
Secrets and Lies: A Redemption's Edge Novel by Janet Sketchley My rating: 5 of 5 stars Carol Daniels has moved with her 16-year-old son Paul from Calgary to Toronto at the beginning of Secrets and Lies, Janet Sketchley’s second book in the Redemption Edge Series. It wasn’t a move of choice but of necessity, to… Continue reading Secrets and Lies (review)
Violet Nesdoly 